Today in 1964, three civil rights workers were brutally murdered in Mississippi.

Today in 2005, the Klan leader who orchestrated it was finally convicted.

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In 1964, the Klan killed three young activists and shocked the nation

A Mississippi town still grapples with that violent civil rights history

By Susan Levine
Photography by Michael S. Williamson
June 20, 2024 at 5:00 a.m.

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. — Even in a decade marked by hatred and violence, what happened here on a sultry June night 60 years ago shocked the nation for its brazenness. ... Amid Freedom Summer, a daring effort to register Black Mississippians to vote, three young civil rights workers came to town. It was a perilous time. Black churches were being torched throughout the South. Segregationists remained defiant.

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The three activists had arrived to check on the latest church burning. But before the sun rose the next morning, Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman would all be dead, ambushed by the Ku Klux Klan as they were heading out of Neshoba County. ... It took a massive FBI mobilization 44 days to find the brutalized bodies. It took years for even a modicum of justice.

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A search for bodies and justice

[1964 CBS Special Report: “The Search in Mississippi”]]

Beyond the horrific events of 1964 — which, without question, drew the attention they did because Schwerner and Goodman were White — other dates are key to understanding the aftermath of Freedom Summer here:

1967: With only the state able to bring murder charges — and Mississippi refusing to do so — the U.S. Justice Department put 18 men on trial for allegedly violating the civil rights of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman. One defendant pleaded guilty. Seven, including a deputy sheriff, were convicted. None spent more than six years behind bars.

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About this story
Editing by Ann Gerhart. Photo editing by Natalia Jiménez. Audio editing by Bishop Sand. Design and development by Agnes Lee. Design editing by Madison Walls and Matt Callahan. Copy editing by Gaby Morera Di Núbila.

Susan Levine
Susan Levine is a deputy editor on the National Desk's America team. @SKLevine

Michael S. Williamson
Michael Williamson is a staff photojournalist at The Washington Post@mswontheroad

• 2005 – Edgar Ray Killen, who had previously been unsuccessfully tried for the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, is convicted of manslaughter 41 years afterwards (the case had been reopened in 2004).

Edgar Ray Killen


Booking photo, late 1964

Born: January 17, 1925; Philadelphia, Mississippi, U.S.
Died: January 11, 2018 (aged 92); Mississippi State Penitentiary, Sunflower County, Mississippi, U.S.
Occupation(s): KKK Kleagle, Baptist Minister
Criminal status: Deceased
Motive: White supremacy
Conviction(s): Manslaughter (3 counts)
Criminal penalty: De facto life imprisonment (60 years) with the possibility of parole after 20 years
Details
Victims: James Chaney, 21
Andrew Goodman, 20
Michael Schwerner, 24
Date apprehended: January 6, 2005 (for the last time)

Edgar Ray Killen (January 17, 1925 – January 11, 2018) was an American Ku Klux Klan organizer who planned and directed the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, three civil rights activists participating in the Freedom Summer of 1964. He was found guilty in state court of three counts of manslaughter on June 21, 2005, the forty-first anniversary of the crime, and sentenced to 60 years in prison. He appealed the verdict, but the sentence was upheld on April 12, 2007, by the Supreme Court of Mississippi. He died in prison on January 11, 2018, at age 92.

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